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Hunger at Home: The Growing Epidemic

By any measure, the United States is a nation of wealth and abundance. Yet even in this most agriculturally productive of all countries, increasing numbers of people suffer the debilitation of hunger. We at Food First consider this to be an outrage.

As Frances Moore Lappé and Joseph Collins pointed out two decades ago, hunger is caused not by any shortage of food, but rather by political and economic factors which result in unfair distribution of food. Not until we recognize and address these fundamental inequalities will we make any real gains in the struggle to eliminate hunger.

What is Hunger?

Hunger is "the mental and physical condition that comes from not eating enough food due to insufficient economic, family, or community resources".(1)

Health effects of hunger and subsequent malnutrition are insidious and long-lasting. Acute malnutrition causes increased infant mortality, low birth weight, retarded physical growth, and impaired brain development.

Even moderate and temporary hunger can cause reduced IQ, radically diminished school performance, and heightened immunodeficiency.(2)

Emotionally, hunger often leads to intense feelings of despair and hopelessness which are the fundamental causes of crime and violence.

Causes of Hunger

People go hungry in America because they are poor, and the poor have been steadly increasing in number here since the 1970s.

The percentage of pople living in poverty in the US has increased from 11.6% in 1970 to 14.2% in 1194.(3)

In 1991, the percentage of children in poverty reached 22% in the US, the highest among industrialized nations.(4)

Hunger at Home

Far too many people now suffer from hunger and malnutrition in America, and, tragically, the dismantling of the federal safety net for the poor virtually guarantees that more will soon join them.

The most recent nationwide survey, completed in 1992, reveals that approximately 30 million Americans are hungry, at least 12 million of whom are under 18. These figures represent a 50% increase since 1985.(5)

A team of researchers recently estimated that 8.4 million people suffer from food insecurity in California alone. They predict that by 2000 that number may include as many as one-third of the state's children.(6)

A new nationwide survey due out in early 1997 expects the trend toward more severe and widespread hunger to persist.

With housing costs on the rise around the nation, poor people are likely to spend over half of their monthly income on rent, leaving very little left over to feed themselves, let alone pay for clothes, medical care, transportation or entertainment. In San Francisco, for example, 16,000 people must survive on $345 per month in General Assistance, the city's aid program for those who do not qualify for federal benefits. The least expensive housing available costs $275 per month, leaving just $2.33 per day for all other expenses.(7)

The federal Food Stamp program, the primary program designed to guarantee that all Americans are satisfactorily nourished, is highly underutilized in many areas. Food Stamps fail to reflect the true cost of food. The average Food Stamp benefit for a family of three is $134 per month, which provides only $0.49 per person per meal when it really requires a minimum of $1.00 to buy a nutritionally adequate meal.(9)

The Welfare reform will cut the Food Stamp program by an additional 18%.

Even when the poor have money to spend on food, what they buy is often overpriced and nutritionally inadequate. The poor typically have extremely limited access to fresh, nutritious food. Since supermarkets and farmer's markets are rare in impoverished areas, and public transportation to and from such areas is often underserviced, the poor have little resort but to buy fast food or other prepared food, or to shop at local convenience stores and corner markets. Food from these sources is of poor quality and extremely expensive relative to supermarket prices.

Forty three percent of all emergency food recipients are children,10 and it is children who suffer the worst from hunger. Their developing bodies and brains are especially vulnerable to the deficiencies of an inadequate diet. Various studies have found:

• 25% of children under four have low hemoglobin levels, which causes iron-deficiency anemia;

• 8.4% of children in America have retarded growth;

• Malnourished children suffer a dramatically increased susceptibility to lead poisoning, which permanently damages the brain, kidneys, and nervous system.(11)

The End of Welfare

Astoundingly, in the very midst of steadily increasing poverty and hunger in America, the US Government has abandoned its promise of a safety net for all. The euphemistically titled Personal Responsibility Act of 1996 has eliminated the government's guarantee of basic human economic rights to its citizens. This legislation punishes the poor instead of focusing on the fundamental changes in the modern world economy which have victimized them.

So-called Welfare "Reform" cuts over $60 billion from aid programs over the next six years.

Responsibility for the poor and hungry falls to the states and counties, in the form of huge unfunded mandates. Since Welfare is only the latest in a long series of once-Federal programs which the decentralizing Republican rhetoric has dumped on the states, most states are already cash-strapped and ill-prepared to take on this new responsibility.

In California, for example, which has a high immigrant population, officials expect to have to spend $10.7 billion providing aid to those Americans denied assistance under the new laws.(12) In New York City alone, the additional cost to local government will be $720 million.(13)

The new law denies any type of assistance to non-citizen legal immigrants, unless they are veterans or refugees, or have worked and paid taxes in the US for at least ten years. Since it takes at least five years for most immigrants to become citizens, this means immigrants will be denied help at the time when they often need it most: when they first arrive in the US, are confused by an unfamiliar culture, and need to learn so much so fast.

The law mandates a five-year lifetime limit on benefits to any family or individual, and gives states freedom to set even stricter time limits.

It requires recipients to find work after 2 years on assistance, though its programs for employment training and new job creation are woefully underfunded. Currently, about 14 percent of adult recipients are either working or in job training programs. The bill requires that number to increase to 25% by 1997 and 50% by 2002.(14)

States which do not achieve these quotas face significant reductions in their block grants.

This blind faith that the private sector will create enough decent jobs to absorb the millions who will soon be pushed off the welfare rolls seems extremely foolhardy in the face of the empirical evidence. These jobs simply do not exist. In Chicago, for example, If all able-bodied welfare recipients were to enter the job market, there would be six applicants for every job. If those applicants were to decide to apply only for those jobs which paid a wage above the poverty level, the ratio would increase to 44:1.(15) A similar study in New York City found 14 applicants for every job.

While states have the freedom to require parents of children as young as 6 to work, they will most likely be unable to provide daycare for their children.

Cuts in Nutrition Programs

Some of the most shortsighted cuts in the new bill apply to Federal food programs.

Over six years, it cuts the Food Stamp program alone by $27 billion.

The average Food Stamp recipient will experience an 18 percent diminution in assistance by 2002. Reductions are higher for the elderly and working families; about 25% and 20% respectively.

Able-bodied, jobless recipients between ages 18-50 will be able to receive only three months worth of Food Stamps in any 3 year period.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that, due to the vast shortage of workfare positions, as many as one million willing workers will be denied the opportunity to earn their keep each month.

Start-up funds and outreach services for most nutrition programs affecting children, including the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP), the Summer Food Service Program(SFSP), the School Breakfast Program(SBP), and the Women, Infant and Children Nutrition Program (WIC) have been frozen at their current levels or eliminated altogether.

WIC has been shown to significantly improve the health of its participants, therefore reducing the need for expensive emergency medical procedures. According to the US GAO, every dollar invested in WIC saves $4.21 in medical costs. Thus cutting WIC will clearly prove to be costlier in the end.(16)

Toward Community Food Security

Clearly the United States is on the wrong path in its efforts to eradicate hunger. We must recognize the link between corporate-sponsored strategies for global trade and phenomena such as increasing unemployment and decreasing availability of well-paying jobs, deterioration of workers' rights, and the consequent epidemic of poverty and hunger racking America in recent years.

Once we recognize that poverty is by no means the result of individual laziness, we can develop new strategies to address under- and unemployment which do not blame or punish the poor as the new welfare laws do.

The right to feed oneself is as inalienable as any other basic human right. Under no circumstances should it be compromised by corporate greed or myopic economic policy.

"Food, housing, and health care are not gifts. They are the the first rights to be claimed by every citizen in a democracy" -Jonathan Kozol

"Hunger does not just happen in a nation with more than enough food to feed itself and a good part of the world. Hunger occurs because policies either produce it or fail to prevent it" -Physician Task Force on Hunger in America

Get Involved

Although the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act became law on August 22, many difficult decisions regarding its implementation must still be made. Those of us who are deeply concerned about the effects of the law still have an enormous chance to influence it.

Agitate at the state and county level, where most decisions about the new bill are yet to be made. Educate yourself about your state's approach to its new responsibilities. Urge lawmakers to hold public hearings about the laws.

Urge President Clinton to follow through on his promise to reassess the law in his second term. Phone: 202-456-1414, Fax: 202-456-2883, or E-mail: president@whitehouse.gov

ENDNOTES:

1 Wogemuth, JC et al, "Wasting Malnutrition and Inadequate Nutrient Intakes Identified in a Multi-Ethnic Homeless Population," Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 1990, vol. 90, no 10: p1387-1392.
2 Neuhauser, Linda et al, "Hunger and Food Insecurity in California," California Policy Seminar Brief , 1995, vol.7, no.4, p2.
3 Aslam, Abid, "Third World Network Features," 1996, #1499, citing the Economic Policy Institute.
4"New Welfare and Medicaid Bill Bad for Children," Children's Defense Fund Reports, 1996, vol. 17, no 7/8. 5"Summary of US Hunger Dimensions: 1984 to the Present," Tufts University Center on Hunger, Poverty & Nutrition Policy, 1996.
6 Neuhauser et al, p5.
7 "Homeless Fact Sheet," St Anthony Foundation, 1995 8 "Hunger In the Midst of Affluence," Contra Costa County Hunger Task Force, 1993, p10.
9 "Hunger in Alameda County," Alameda Community Food Bank, 1993, p11.
10 "Hunger in the Midst of Affluence," p3.
11 "Hunger in Alameda County," p8(citing CHDP statistics).
12 McLeod, R and Shioya, T., "Welfare Changes Would Hit California Counties Hard," San Francisco Chronicle, Thurs, Aug 1, 1996: pA9.
13 Firestone, David, "Giuliani Sees Cost of Benefits Surging from Bill in Congress," The New York Times, Thurs, Aug 1, 1996:pA11.
14 Pear, Robert, "Changes in How Welfare is Operated, Though Sweeping, Will Be Taking Shape Slowly," The New York Times, Tues, Aug 6, 1996: pA10.
15 Andersen et al, "NAFTA's First Two Years," The Institute for Policy Studies, 1996, p14(citing Illinois Job Gap Project statistics).
16 Texas Association of Community Action Agencies "Welfare Bill to Become Law," TACAA Food Journal 1996 vol. 10, no 8.